The house in which Aunt Jean lived was very near the lake, and Stiggins liked to lie on the front porch and watch the children at play by the water’s edge.  One day, Harry and Sally were there with a small sail-boat attached to a string, which Harry held, as the boat sailed out on the water.  Suddenly the string broke, and then there was nothing with which to draw the boat to land.

The children were quite small and did not know what to do.  They asked a big boy to wade out and return the boat to them, but he was a lazy boy and told them to throw stones beyond the boat to make it come back of itself.  They tried his plan, but were not strong enough to throw the stones very far, and the boat only floated further away.

All this time Stiggins had been lying on the porch watching the children.  I am not sure whether he thought they were throwing stones for him to swim after, or whether he saw they were in trouble and wished to help them, but this is what he did.  Without a word from anyone, he jumped up, trotted down to the water and waded in.  The children and the big boy wondered what he meant to do.  Stiggins himself seemed to know very well.  He swam straight to the boat, caught it in his mouth, brought it to land, and dropped it at the children’s feet.  Then he trotted back to the porch.

Harry and Sally thought that Stiggins was the kindest and most polite dog they had ever seen, and the big boy was ashamed, because he thought that a dog had been kinder and more polite than he.

This story is as true as true can be.  I know, because Aunt Jean saw the whole affair and she told me about it herself.

* * * * *

When Johnnie Jones was a Santa Claus

“I should think it would be exciting to be Santa Claus,” said Johnnie Jones, “and fill children’s stockings when they are asleep in bed.  I should like very well to be his helper some time.”

“You may be,” Mother answered; “anyone who really wishes to be Santa’s assistant, may be.”

Johnnie Jones was surprised.  “Well, I didn’t know that,” he said.  “Please tell me how.”

“Whenever people give Christmas presents to those they love, they are a sort of Santa Claus,” Mother told him.  “But this year you may be a real Santa Claus, if you like, with a real pack of toys, and you may fill some real stockings belonging to some real children, this coming Christmas Eve.”

“Oh!  Mother dear, tell me all about it, quick as a wink,” begged Johnnie Jones, clapping his hands with delight.

“I thought you would be pleased,” Mother answered.  “Father knows of a large house in which ever so many children live who have never hung up their stockings.  I suppose no one has thought to tell Santa Claus about them, and their fathers and mothers are very poor.  Father and I want to make them have a bright, happy Christmas this year, and he has told them, each one, to be sure to hang up stockings on Christmas Eve for a Santa Claus to fill.  If you like, you may be that Santa, and Father and I will be your assistants, and we’ll go, all three of us, to the house at night when the children are fast asleep.”